The 4th National Conference on Building Resilience through Public-Private Partnerships will take place on October 15 and 16 at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce headquarters in Washington, DC. The conference is a partnership between the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and U.S. Northern Command.

Featured Keynotes

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Charles Johnson

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate

David Kenny, CEO, The Weather Channel

This year’s agenda focuses on our interconnected world, from neighborhoods to the global partnerships. Learn about evolving risks to the infrastructure that powers, transports, informs, and otherwise connects organizations and the people they serve. Join discussions on emerging issues, like climate adaptation and cybersecurity, as well as innovative efforts to leverage philanthropy, technology, trained corporate volunteers, and information sharing networks through public private partnerships.

Bring your questions and big ideas, and prepare to learn, share and actively contribute to 50 Big Ideas for building resilience. The 2014 conference will be hosted at the US Chamber of Commerce, across the street from the White House. Registration fills up quickly, so sign up today to join leaders from around the country who are making a difference in building national resilience.

Federal employees--please enter the registration code "USG-PPPCONF" in the registration form to receive the appropriate rate. To verify, you must show your government I.D. at registration on the day of the event.

CCC Issue Network Supporters--please enter the registration code "CCC-PPPCONF" in the registration form to receive the appropriate rate.

In today’s evolving threat environment, government and private sector alike are thinking broadly about the array of risks they face, including climate adaptation and extreme weather, cyber threats, acts of terrorism, and aging and failing components, and the impact these risks can have on our nationaland economic security.

This unclassified briefing will present emerging and observed threats from government intelligence leaders, risk experts, and corporate CIOs, and set the foundation to examine how preparedness and resilience efforts can reduce the likelihood and/or impact of these threats.

Thomas Fanning, Business Assurance Principal, Southern

Keith D. Squires, Commissioner, Utah Department of Public Safety

Francis X. Taylor, Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis, Department of Homeland Security

Moderator: Under Secretary Suzanne Spaulding, National Protection and Programs Directorate, U.S. Department of Homeland Security

10:50 a.m. - 11:10 a.m.

Networking Break

11:10 a.m. - 12:10 p.m.

Plenary Panel: The Interconnected World: Challenges and Opportunities

In the face of an evolving risk environment, Administration policy including Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) 8 on National Preparedness, Executive Order 13636 on Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, and PPD 21 on Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience underscores the need for our nation to think broadly about the way we manage security and resilience across the essential services and products we rely on.

Public private partnerships bring together the unique capabilities of government and the private sector to identify solutions to emerging risks and manage the consequences of incidents. The panel will discuss developing thinking with regards to risk management and innovative ways that private sector can work with government – and vice versa – to prepare and protect their organizations and their communities from the threats outlined in the previous panel.

William Beary, Chief, Engineer Operations, Directorate of Logistics and Engineering, NORAD and USNORTHCOM

Moderator: David Kaufman, Associate Administrator for Policy, Program Analysis, and International Affairs, FEMA

12:10 p.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Networking Break/Pick-up Lunch

12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.

Lunch Keynote

David Kenny, CEO, The Weather Channel

1:30 p.m. - 1:45 p.m.

Transition to first set of Breakout Sessions

1:45 p.m. - 2:40 p.m.

Afternoon Breakout Sessions

(Attendees select two (2) 1 hour sessions. Format is four concurrent sessions – two intended for smaller target segments (40-60 people each) and one larger interest topic (180 –200) to reflect available space.)

Bridging the Cyber/Physical Connection

Discussion will include interdependencies between cyber and physical security, vulnerabilities, risk management, mitigation efforts industry is taking, as well as recent Congressional activity on cybersecurity and innovative ways of working collaboratively toward improved cybersecurity in the power, telecom, and retail sectors.

Technology and Voluntary Capabilities

Our society relies heavily on technology tools to meet and exceed business demands. Technology such as social media and mobile apps also changes the way we respond to disasters because it allows immediate access to data, resources and support. As each new disaster occurs, it creates a challenge in re-establishing our computer networks, telecommunications and other resources that requires specially skilled people to help in the response and recovery phase. During the workshop, we will explore the role of technology volunteers in disasters as well as collaborations with government and non-government organizations focused on community resilience.

Business Continuity and Corporate Philanthropy: Why Resilience is Good for the Corporate Will

Many companies have business continuity and corporate philanthropy professionals that work on different aspects of disaster preparedness. Whether it is preparing the company for threats or working on community preparedness, this session will explore how working together makes sense to achieve true resilience. This session will also participants through available tools across the business continuity space to include templates, exercise tools and best practice sharing.

Kevin Cunningham, Vice President and Global Head of Business Continuity Management, NBC Universal

Badging and Credentialing

Gaining access to disaster areas is often difficult for businesses trying to get up and running quickly. But business recovery is critical to a community effectively returning to ‘normal.’ This session will explore solutions to the challenge of allowing people into a disaster area while also maintaining security. An update of developments on this topic since it was presented at the 2011 Conference will also be discussed.

Second Set of Breakout Sessions

Driving Mitigation and Resilience

Community recovery is a long and complicated process that is most easily achieved when the sectors are working together. Out of lessons learned from events such as Superstorm Sandy, Colorado Wild Fires, this breakout will consider topics such as: small business recovery support, long term coordination between businesses, government, and nonprofits, and utilizing recovery funds in an effective way to build resilience against future risk.

The Asia-Pacific Institute for Resilience and Sustainability (AIRSTM) represents a public private partnership model to address complex issues around community resilience that integrates the physical, environmental, and cyber/informational aspects through a streamlined concept—Resilience By Design TM. The AIRS partners from IBM, MIT, State of Hawaii and U.S. Pacific Command will disucss the strategy of how a true multi-sector collaboration can use big data analytics to deliver innovative solutions to the global community's most complex problems.

Randy Baldemor, Director of Strategic Initiatives, State of Hawaii Office of the Governor

Business Emergency Operations Centers – Maximizing Coordination at the State and Local Level

The concept of Business Emergency Operations Centers (BEOCs) is taking root around the nation. This session will follow a facilitated roundtable format to discuss how BEOCs can most effectively coordinate private sector efforts to respond to and recover from disasters and best support situational awareness and information sharing. Join us to hear from some of the pioneering BEOCs, discuss newly emerging efforts, and network with peers from around the country who are building or maturing their own BEOC models.

Volunteers and Donations

When disaster strikes, small to large organizations want to help! Offering volunteers, goods and services can be complicated and if not done correctly, can cause unnecessary challenges. This session will explore how organizations can become better connected with groups designed to accept, deliver, and manage assistance, and make the process more efficient and effective. Topics include supporting mass care, shelter, logistics, and in kind donation partnerships.

Opportunity to bring back all individuals from breakout sessions and for audience members to discuss ideas generated from throughout the day as well as draw out ideas and best practices that attendees are implementing to increase resilience through partnerships within their respective organizations.

Facilitator: Bill Raisch, Director, International Center for Enterprise Preparedness (InterCEP), New York University

Listen to success stories from regional partners and learn about the mutual progression of public and private partnerships during times of crisis. This panel will share best practices happening across the country and tips and tools for fostering resilience at the community level, with emphasis on the activity categories included in the NIPP’s Call to Action.